A popular new trend in cooking is that individuals and families have started to deep fry whole turkeys rather than more traditional cooking techniques, such as roasting. In response to this trend, a number of turkey-frying specific cooking vessels have been introduced. These “turkey fryers” include a deep, relatively narrow stock pot which is sized to receive a whole turkey. The turkey is lowered into the pot immersing it into heated cooking oil. In addition to the taste and relatively rapid cook time, this popularity is based in-part on the portable nature of these turkey fryers, which are typically heated using a propane-fueled fire.
One disadvantage of current turkey fryers is that they are used infrequently. One of the reasons for their infrequent use is that a whole cooked turkey is generally considered a food for special occasions, such as holidays. Furthermore, the turkey fryer's inherent depth and relatively large cooking oil requirements result in turkey fryer owners finding other cooking implements to prepare their “everyday” foods, such as chicken wings, breaded fish, or French fries. Presently, fryer baskets are provided to cook “non-turkey” foods in these fryers, but these baskets are cumbersome, relatively expensive, and difficult to load and unload. Additionally, these baskets do not provide for any separation of the food items being cooked. Consequently, the cooked food may be stuck together or uncooked as cooking oil may not fully surround each food item.
There is therefore a need for a system and method for utilizing a turkey fryer for cooking various and disparate foods simultaneously. The system including a plurality of stackable racks, each having individual lifting brackets which concomitantly operate as spacers between adjacent stacked racks to maintain separation of the food items. These stackable racks in combination with a cooking basket, the turkey fryer pot and portable heat/fuel source advantageously provide a user with a cooking apparatus that can be used much more frequently than traditional turkey fryers thereby increasing the overall utility and usefulness over these mainstream fryers.
The present invention provides a plurality of stackable cooking racks having wire mesh bodies for supporting various food items. Each wire mesh body is supported around its outer periphery by a metal border or edging, which provides stiffness and encloses the individual wire strands of the mesh. Each rack further includes a number of handle loops which extend from the border. The handles each have a hand-sized bail running parallel to the mesh body, which acts as both a grip for handling the rack and as a rest for another rack when the racks are stacked together. The handle's bail is offset a distance from the mesh body to allow sufficient space for food items to fit between stacked racks and to allow cooking oil to flow up and around each food item.
It is an advantage of the present invention to provide a novel combination for deep frying food items in a cooking fluid. The combination comprising: a cooking basket having a bottom surface and a sidewall extending upwardly from the bottom surface, the sidewall and bottom surface cooperating to define an interior cavity; a pot which is shaped complementary to and is sized to receive the cooking basket within an interior opening; and a plurality of cooking racks, each rack comprising: a flat body having a wire mesh screen and a border which encloses a periphery of the screen, the border having an outer edge which is complementarily shaped with the sidewall; and a plurality of spaced handles mounted to the body. Each of the handles including an elongated bail which is parallel to the body, wherein each of the bails have an uppermost surface and each of the uppermost surfaces are coplanar. The cooking racks are stackable upon each other vertically such that each stacked cooking rack rests upon the uppermost surfaces of the adjacent lower cooking rack.
It is another advantage of the present invention to provide an improved frying apparatus for deep frying food items within a pot sized to receive a whole turkey. The improvement comprising: a cooking basket shaped complementary to the pot having a vertical sidewall and a bottom wall which cooperate to define a cylindrical cooking cavity; and a plurality of cooking racks, each rack comprising a flat body having a wire mesh screen and a border which encloses the periphery of the screen. The border having a circular outer edge which is sized to leave a continuous gap between the outer edge and the sidewall of the basket that is between one-quarter inch to one-half inch when the cooking rack is centered within the cooking basket. Each rack further comprising a plurality of handles equally spaced around and mounted to a top surface of the border. Each of the handles including an elongated bail which is parallel to the body, wherein the bails have coplanar uppermost surfaces. The cooking racks are stackable upon each other vertically such that each stacked cooking rack abuts the coplanar uppermost surfaces of the adjacent lower cooking rack.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description when viewed in accordance with the accompanying drawings.